Advocacy group raises awareness for undercounted children ahead of the census

Kelly Kultys @kellykultys

Friday

Jan 18, 2019 at 2:43 PMJan 18, 2019 at 2:43 PM

Advocates for Children of New Jersey are beginning to work to make sure children under the age of 5 aren't missed in the 2020 census, especially in hard to count areas.

TRENTON — As planning and preparation for the 2020 census moves into full swing, one advocacy group is raising the alarm to make sure that children across New Jersey are counted properly.

“Roughly 5.2 percent of children under age 5 were undercounted in New Jersey in the 2010 Census,” said Peter Chen, policy counsel for the Advocates for Children of New Jersey, in a statement. “That equates to 27,000 kids, enough to fill 1,350 kindergarten classes or 540 school buses. Another undercount would leave an entire generation of New Jersey children shortchanged for a decade.”

Across the state about 150,000 children under five live in “hard to count areas,” which are defined as areas where a low percentage of residents completed and returned their most recent Census forms in 2010.

In Burlington County, five municipalities — Maple Shade, Riverside, Lumberton, North Hanover and Mount Holly — were listed as “hard to count” cities by the nonprofit group, which conducts child research and advocates for policies to benefit children.

“The point that we wanted to make is, some of the largest hard to count communities in our state are in our large urban areas, but I think the fact that there are several municipalities in Burlington County really shows this is a statewide issue and it's not something that just large cities need to worry about,” Alana Vega, Kids Count coordinator for ACNJ, said in an interview on Friday.

On top of that, children are often left off forms, even if their families complete them and fill them out, Vega said.

“Kids under 5 are sorta hit with this double duty,” she said. “They're part of households that may not fill out a census, but many are part of households where they're just not included on a census form. The reasons for that are complicated, but it seems like in many instances it has to do with sort of the complex household situations that young children are often involved in.”

For example, Vega said, if a young child is living with a grandparent, the grandparent may not know to include child as a part of that household.

Vega said under counting children has two big impacts: shortchanging funds for necessary programs and messing with local municipal planning.

In 2016, New Jersey received about $23 billion in federal funding for programs such as Medicaid, Title I school programs, SNAP benefits and Head Start early childhood programs. Those programs allocate their funding based on census data.

“By not doing a complete count we're not helping New Jersey get its fair share of those resources, and that could have potentially an effect on how much we get in 2020,” Vega said.

The other issue could affect local municipalities and their school districts, she said.

“If we have an undercount of children under 5 in a specific municipality, that could impact the local school district in how many kindergarten classrooms they need,” she said.

In order to raise awareness about the census and counting children specifically, Vega said that ACNJ is working with the New Jersey “complete count commission” that was created in August 2018 to develop strategies to make sure families are counted.

One of the first things they plan to do is reach out to those involved in early childhood activities, such as teachers, child care providers and pediatricians to make sure they are properly informed about the importance of the census and can provide information to families to make sure they are aware.

“Roughly 85 percent of young children omitted in the 2010 Census lived in households that returned a census questionnaire,” Chen said in a statement. “That means, someone returned a census form but left off the young child. A census campaign focused on young children would require not only that the form be filled out and returned, but also that all people living in the household be counted.”

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